wood can glow in the dark for days using fungus, researchers find

Wood that glows in the dark using ringless honey fungus

A team led by fungal researcher Francis Schwarze from Empa’s Cellulose & Wood Materials lab in St. Gallen looks into the idea of making wood glow in the dark using parasite-like fungus that infiltrates the material. The research begins with the ringless honey fungus, which is a parasitic fungus that infects trees and causes white rot, a condition that damages wood. This can harm trees, but some species of this fungus can produce a substance called luciferin. It’s this liquid that’s responsible for bioluminescence, allowing what it permeates to glow or have the ability to emit light. The fungus triggers a two-stage reaction that stimulates luciferin, causing the wood to emit a green light.

This happens when fungal threads spread throughout the wood. After that, the wood that glows in the dark is dubbed a biohybrid because it’s a combination of living fungus and non-living wood. Researchers see a potential with this because it can allow for the production of materials that glow, such as portable lighting devices during trips to isolated or dark areas. For the first time, researchers at Empa have been able to replicate and control this bioluminescent process in a lab. This shows that it can be reproduced and used for practical applications.

all images and video stills courtesy of the researchers and Empa

Luciferin is the substance that generates luminescence

Fungal researcher Francis Schwarze from Empa leads the research. He has also examined the genetic code of the mushrooms to understand how they can produce bioluminescence that can help wood glow in the dark. In the study, the team discovers that the ringless honey fungus contains luciferin, the substance that generates luminescence.

This becomes the focus of the study, and Francis Schwarze has experimented with ringless honey fungus and used it with balsa wood for testing. This type of wood is known for being light, so it’s ideal for experiments with fungi since the researchers want to learn how the substance affects the structural components of wood. They’ve used spectroscopy, a technique for studying material composition, to understand how the fungus breaks down lignin.

ringless honey fungus can produce a substance that allows for bioluminescence

Wood remains robust even after ‘infection’

This is a key component of wood that makes it stiff and robust. The result shows that despite the fungus ‘affecting’ the lignin of the balsa wood, its overall strength and ability remain the same. To prove this, the researchers use X-ray on the infiltrated balsa wood, and they see through this that the cellulose in the wood is damaged. In this case, the fungus managed to break down lignin but without harming cellulose, thus maintaining its structural integrity.

The glowing reaction starts as soon as the wood with fungus comes into contact with air because it triggers an enzyme reaction. It glows in the dark, then within around ten hours, it can emit green light with a wavelength of 560 nanometers. So far, the wood can glow in the dark for up to 10 days, and the researchers are now trying to make it glow brighter and extend its shining time.

the fungus triggers a two-stage reaction that stimulates luciferin, causing the wood to emit a green light